Re: [patch] IPv6 support for gdbserver

[Daniel Jacobowitz <drow@false.org>]

On Mon, Oct 09, 2006 at 04:16:34PM +0200, Jan Kratochvil wrote:
> > And second, isn't there a better way of specifying two descriptors?  I
> > find the "fdNM" method inelegant, and the limitation of a single-digit
> > descriptor it requires too high a price to pay.  I hope we can come up
> > with a better method.
> 
> Designed for trivia C parsing as the IPv6 support was considered too
> complicated by Daniel Jacobowitz and the string parsing in C is a lot of lines.
> The new syntax looks like that of socat(1):
> 	socat EXEC:'gdbserver fdin=3,fdout=4 emacs foo.txt',fdin=3,fdout=4 TCP-LISTEN:2345

We're a GNU program.  We should use the standard GNU style for command
line options wherever possible.

Anyway, I don't think we need another update of this patch; let's get
answers to the big picture questions first.  I've asked the general
questions I want feedback about on the gdb@ mailing list, in another
message.  Then, if it needs any big reworking, I'll volunteer to finish
it.  We've made you jump through enough hoops already!

I'd prefer to avoid the "tcp6:" syntax if we can, and have things work
transparently.  It's been about a year since I last looked at IPv6
support in anything, though.  Do you think this is feasible?
In particular, "target remote hostname:port" ought to work fine for
IPv6.

> > > 	* gdb.texinfo (Using the gdbserver program): Remove "host:port".
> > 
> > Why?  I think back-compatibility is important.
> 
> It looks broken to me to support IPv4 without supporting IPv6, moreover if the
> IPv6 functions to use are simpler.  I hope you are aware of the former full
> IPv6 support posted here:
> 	http://sourceware.org/ml/gdb-patches/2006-09/msg00216.html
> 
> 
> The second patch "gdb-cvs-IPv6-hostport-minus.patch" was not updated for this
> one as it looks as the IPv4 legacy code is not going to be dropped even with
> the socat(1) support there.

Plenty of people use gdbserver with IPv4, and up until now, no one has
even asked us for IPv6 support.  I think it's absurd to say that IPv6
is as essential as IPv4 support here.

Maybe I was wrong, and we should go ahead and add IPv6 directly to
gdbserver.  I need to understand the usefulness first.

Let's give it a few days.

-- 
Daniel Jacobowitz
CodeSourcery